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Jersey has taken a tumble in a major league table of international finance centres – and now finds itself behind Glasgow, Gibraltar and even Almaty in Kazakhstan.
And the Island has lost its top spot in the offshore rankings compiled in the Global Financial Centres Index, which it has held since it was first included in the table six years ago.
The latest Global Financial Centres Index ranks 83 finance centres around the world on five criteria: business environment, financial sector development, infrastructure, human capital and a reputational and general factor. It places Jersey 62nd, 21 spots down from its position six months ago.
The top western European and Asian centres all dropped in the most recent figures, but the report says that offshore centres have struggled particularly with regulation and reputation.
New York remains the top-ranked financial centre, narrowly ahead of London.
Just over a year ago, Jersey was in the top 30 of the league table – a point welcomed at the time by Jersey Finance, the promotional body for the finance industry.
The news follows the GVA figures released this week that showed that while the finance industry still accounted for more than two-fifths of Jersey’s economy, it had shrunk by 3% in 2013. The figures showed that the size of the finance sector had contracted by a third since 2008.
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